The pre season is all about evaluation, looking at your veteran players and how they look, and more importantly assesing the abilities of the rookie players from the draft and free agency. The rookies are the future of any team, and figuring out which ones have promise is anything but an exact science. Many players excell during practice but can't seem to get the job done in actual game situations. One player on the Ravens squad that fits that acesment is wide receiver Justin Harper. The kid has shined during training camp but in live game situations he has dropped nearly as many passes as he has caught. He says that the drops are behind him and they had better be if he wants to find a place on the 53 man roster. Expect him to get what could be one of his final chances to prove he belongs facing the Panthers tonight. I realize it must be a tremendous amount of pressure to perform when your a young player looking to make the team. It's something you've trained for your whole life, and then it comes down to a few pre season games that decide if you're going to have a career in the NFL or go to plan B.

There are also a couple of offensive linemn who will be evaluated such as Oneil Cousins, David Hale, and Joe Reitz. I would think that only one of them will make the team and at this point I would say Cousins is in last place due to his poor pass blocking.

The rookies won't get much of an oppertunity against the Panthers as the starters will be seeing nearly 3 quarters of the action. Cam Cameron wants to see his offense score touchdowns when they're in the red zone, and his counterpart on defense Gregg Mattison wants to see his defenders clean up their blitz packages, which were often sloppy againt the Jets.